Don't Think About Elephants
by BurstingAtTheSeams
Summary: Silly one-shot. Ariadne has three days to complete her project for Professor Miles, but can't stop thinking about ... elephants? Damn Arthur. She goes to extraordinary lengths to solve her problem, with the help of a certain Forger. Whole crew minus Cobb.


**A/N: Okay, so this is completely different to what I've been doing so far. But I had a rather random thought at work today and could not shake the image from my mind - congratulations Mr. Nolan, your plan worked! Inception at its most basic! Genius.**

**So, before I returned to my other (much more serious and high-brow) story that is 'Fallout', I felt the need to purge this silliness from my system, lest patchwork elephants begin traipsing through the chapters yet to come.**

**Inspiration comes from the song 'Don't Think About Elephants' on the Inception soundtrack. I know, you would never have guessed, right? I hope you enjoy this ridiculous little one-shot and forgive me the lapse. :)**

**Oh, and I do not own, nor will I ever own, Inception or Nellie the Elephant. Though I think I had the book of Nellie's adventures, once upon a time ... was it just a British thing, or American too? Hmm.  
**

It was official: Ariadne couldn't stop thinking about elephants. She had even dreamt about them the night before. It was like a cross between Nellie and Dumbo. In fact, she seemed to remember pink elephants dancing around to that exact song, all while rolling around on giant circus balls and generally looking rather lively for an animal that weighed more than five tonnes.

_Nellie the Elephant packed her trunk and said goodbye to the circus ..._

She blamed Arthur for the ridiculous dream and the fact that she could not – no matter how hard she tried – stop thinking about the enormous creature for more than five minutes at a time. It had been her great misfortune to overhear a snippet of his conversation with Eames as she had crossed the warehouse to leave the previous night.

'_You said _what_?'_

'_I told him not to think about elephants. What else was I supposed to say? It was just an example. Of course, he immediately started to think of them.'_

And now, so had she. Today was supposed to be the day she made inroads on her project for Professor Miles, recreating a model of her favourite Parisian landmark. But would those damn elephants allow it? Of course not.

_Off she went with a trumpety-trump, trump, trump, trump ..._

After two hours of fruitless umm-ing and ahh-ing, staring at the foam boards that littered her desk, she had given up and succumbed to the overwhelming desire to make a mini-elephant instead. She would make one – just one – to satisfy her needs and then return to the important task of actually working.

Or so she had hoped. To her dismay, making one elephant had not proved sufficient. So she had tried again ... and again ... and again, until she had elephants of all shapes and sizes, colours and textures. She had even sculpted her own Nellie complete with patchwork skin, but still she could not concentrate on her due-in-three-days project.

_Nellie the Elephant packed her trunk and trundled back to the jungle ..._

At five o'clock she admitted defeat and threw down her tools. But she would not finish without first taking her revenge on those responsible. It simply would not do.

_Off she went with a trumpety-trump, trump, trump, trump ..._

**xoxo**

Fifteen minutes later she was heaving the warehouse door open, rucksack on her back and an angry glint in her eye. She ignored the Forger's surprised greeting and marched straight up the Point Man's desk. He was sitting down, leaning back in his chair with a pen hanging from his mouth, a look of utter concentration on his pale face as he studied the laptop in front of him. Ariadne was almost tempted to kick his chair away – small retribution for the suffering he had inflicted on her.

_Night by night she danced to the circus band, when Nellie was leading the big parade she looked so proud and grand ..._

Arthur put paid to her hasty plan by looking up at her and returning the chair to its normal angle, a frown creasing his smooth face.

'Ariadne, what are you doing here? I thought you were meant to be – '

But Ariadne never found out what he had thought; she had opened her rucksack and dumped all twenty of her mini-elephants onto his pristine desk before he had a chance to finish. She glared at him as he picked one up – the tiny red one she had made on her fifth try – and studied it, in much the same way as he had been scrutinising his computer screen seconds earlier.

'Er ... Ariadne, what is all this? Am I supposed to do something with these ... elephants?'

Ariadne dropped her bag to the floor and folded her arms across her chest, her lips pursed. She heard Eames get up from his own desk and walk across the concrete floor to see what all the fuss was about.

'Do you know how much work I've managed to get done today because of you?' she demanded, her eyes boring into the Point Man's. To his credit, he looked slightly perturbed – and Arthur was _never _perturbed. 'None. Zilch. All because of _you_.'

'I fail to see how you making models of elephants has anything to do with me,' Arthur replied calmly, one eyebrow cocked as he took in the petite Architect's irritable expression.

_No more tricks for Nellie to perform, they taught her how to take a bow and she took the crowd by storm ..._

'You can't say 'Don't think about elephants' and expect someone _not_ to think about them!' she huffed, slapping Eames' hand as he reached to pick one of the models up. 'I'm sure Professor Miles will be thrilled when I turn up with twenty small elephants instead of a scale model of the Notre Dame.'

Eames burst out laughing, much to Ariadne's chagrin. She rounded on him, her eyes narrowed into slits as she considered the Forger's mirth – coming at her expense, no less.

'Sorry, love, but that's bloody hilarious,' he chuckled. 'And Arthur thought Inception couldn't be done the simple way.'

'Shut up, Eames,' Ariadne snapped, fighting the urge to grab one of the tiny animals and shove it right –

'All right, all right,' Eames said, holding his hands up in mock surrender. 'Here, I'll help you with your problem. No, come on, just trust me. It's a brilliant plan, if I do say so myself.' He rubbed his palms together and stared at her, waiting for her nod of approval. 'Okay, ready?' He took a deep breath, and then – 'Monkeys.'

'What?'

'Monkeys.'

Ariadne heard the unmistakable guffaw of Yusuf from the far corner of the room as she raised her eyebrow at the Forger, her lack of amusement plain for all to see.

'Is that supposed to be a joke?'

'No, it's brilliant! Don't you see?' Eames exclaimed, a wide grin breaking out on his bearded face. 'What are you thinking about now – right _now_?'

'Well, monkeys, obviously.'

'Exactly! Stopped you thinking about elephants, though, didn't it?'

Yusuf's chuckle turned into full-on hysterics, but Ariadne didn't stop long enough to chastise him. She snatched up her rucksack from the floor, scowled one last time at Arthur – who, she was pleased to note, had the grace to look slightly shamefaced – and stormed out of the warehouse again, muttering a string of obscenities at 'those bloody idiots'.

She was determined; she would _not_ be beaten by a mammal whose claim to fame was a kids' song about a patchwork called Nellie.

**xoxo**

_Nellie the Elephant packed her trunk and said goodbye to the circus ..._

Ariadne awoke in a foul mood the following morning. She had still not managed to start her project, and worst of all, she had dreamt _yet again_ about that absurd elephant. Only this time, Nellie had decided to debut on Broadway with her famous song and troupe of pink pals. The Architect was _not_ amused.

She decided that, rather than stay indoors _not_ working on her project, she would _not _work at the warehouse and at least make the others suffer as much as she was. After a hasty breakfast and five-minute shower, she made her way back to her home-away-from-home, wondering just what comments and jokes she should expect this time.

**xoxo**

She arrived to find Eames absent from his desk. Not that it surprised her in the least – he was always off getting up to ... well, whatever it was he got up to. What she _did_ find odd was the sight of Yusuf abandoning his work station, and Arthur _not_ staring at his computer screen, instead focusing his attention on the table under the far window, looking distinctly unimpressed. Ariadne followed his gaze to the far corner of the warehouse, her eyes settling on the back of the highly irritating Forger standing in front of her own workspace. She sighed, dreading what she would find when she walked over.

Yusuf gave a loud, very unsubtle cough as she approached, drawing Eames' concentration away from the table. He whipped around, spreading his arms out to hide its contents from her view.

'Eames, what – '

'You weren't meant to be in today!' he accused, looking thoroughly dismayed at her presence. 'Ah, you're going to ruin it. Oh well.'

'Ruin what?' she asked, her curiosity piqued despite her sour mood.

Eames stepped aside and flourished his hands at the table. 'Ta da!'

Ariadne stepped closer to the desk, peering down at the tiny objects that cluttered its surface. Her eyes widened when she realised exactly what she was looking at.

'So?' Eames said, gleefully. 'What do you think?'

Every species of animal Ariadne could possibly think of was represented on the table – tiny plastic models of lions, bears, tigers, whales, dogs, cats, and, yes, even elephants.

_Off she went with a trumpety-trump, trump, trump, trump ..._

It was like a multi-coloured zoo, a menagerie of exotic creatures jostling for space on her desk. She turned to look at the grinning Forger, one eyebrow cocked in disbelief.

'And the point of this is ... ?'

Eames heaved a dramatic sigh and shook his head at her foolishness. 'Don't you see the beauty? Now you'll have to look at them every day, thus purging your mind of the desire to make little tiny models! There'll be no need. You'll have them at the ready, any time you need them.'

He flashed her another smile and nodded, trying to encourage her to see the wisdom in his actions.

'God, I'm surrounded by idiots,' Ariadne muttered as she slumped down into her chair.

She heard Arthur – unusually silent for so long – power up his laptop as his chair legs thudded to the floor. 'Eames, get back to work already and leave her alone,' he barked, his eyes trained on the screen in front of him. 'We're behind as it is.'

The Forger trudged back to his own desk, muttering under his breath the whole way. Yusuf resumed his study of the latest sedative to hit the market, leaving Ariadne alone with her newfound pets. She looked down at the small pieces of plastic, so lovingly arranged on her – now cluttered – desk. The corners of her mouth twitched into a small smile as she picked up one of the elephants and examined it, rolling it around in her palm.

_Nellie the Elephant packed her trunk ..._

The men around her may have been idiots for various reasons, but they were _her_ idiots. And she adored every one of them.

**A/N: Just quick one to finish. So, I don't usually write Eames as an out-and-out cheeky chappy/joker type (he has far more substance than that!), but felt it worked better in such a silly story.**** As I said, it was something that needed to be done before I continued with my _real_ story, so forgive me! I hope you found it even slightly amusing nonetheless. :)**

**EDIT: I apologise, I had to edit this as I didn't realise FF didn't accept asterisks in the middle of the text! Nor single lines, for that matter. Silly thing. So you're stuck with noughts and crosses. Also, apologies for the rather lame ending - it was the only bit I couldn't figure out in my head, so it shall have to do for now.  
**


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